Slow Poison
by Withershins
Summary: The game had been set to close, L set to die. But life is a capricious master, and one change in the variables can upset even the most carefully-laid plans. Now, it's just a question of who will succumb to the poison first. Eventual L/Light.
1. As Planned

_This story will contain death, violence, sex, language of the potentially offensive sort, and gayness (it's the last one you want to watch out for, it'll drag you down to hell – and you'll __**like**__ it!). Smut? Who knows._

_Standard disclaimers apply. The Misa/Ryuk dialogue was pulled directly from the manga (mostly), and the Light/Misa scene was sort of pulled from the manga (mostly not), so I own those bits even less than I own the rest of this shit._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

_As Planned_

* * *

><p>With a rush of memories, it began again.<p>

_Kira._

It was exhilarating. A night of harsh-breathed resurrection, of crisp bites into forbidden fruit, of ripping away foolish blindfolds and donning silken, death-drenched masks.

_I am Kira._

It was overpowering. A heart-stopping moment of returned memory, of reborn power, of _Ryuzaki, let me see that_ – the space of only a few, shuddering breaths, yet the significance of an eternity.

_I am Kira._

His blood sang, his heart thrummed, his soul laughed in uncontrolled elation. The forgotten smell of musk and death and crisp empty pages entwined around him like a well-known friend, filling his lungs with a thousand last gasps, his heart with a thousand last beats, his hand with a thousand new endings.

_Hello, Kira._ It greeted him with the familiarity of a lover's embrace, of pen caressing paper, and the sharp tang of his own spilled blood sealed the reformed bond. His fingers curled around a belladonna-black cover.

_Kira. I am Kira. Everything went-_

_**Exactly as planned.**_

* * *

><p>With damp earth beneath her knees, night's veil above her head, and chilled, silent air in her lungs, she made her decision.<p>

"Ryuk! Make the eye trade with me!"

Wide, soulless eyes turned on her, a razor's smile on death-colored lips.

"Do you understand what will happen?"

"What?"

"You've already made the trade once with Rem and cut your lifespan in half."

"I know that."

"So it's okay if I half your already halved lifespan?"

A penned promise clutched in her hand, lending her strength.

"Yes…I won't be able to face Light like this."

"Well, it's fine with me…"

_If you do this, I will love you until death pulls us apart._

And Ryuk laughed and laughed as apple-red numbers unwound, the joke only he could see.

* * *

><p>L was a dead man walking.<p>

Within a matter of days, his body would be drained of life and cooling on the floor, a fallen testament to Kira's power. Just a few more days, and this drawn-out battle between two figureheads of self-declared justice would be over, and nothing would stand in Light's way.

"Yagami-kun, are you going to eat that?"

Unfortunately, until Misa returned with either L's name or the eyes, L was also a dead man talking – and, when he wasn't relentlessly shooting question after pointless question at the evasive Shinigami or crouched on the sofa with a creased brow, trying to puzzle his way through the convoluted muddle of the Death Note and its rules, he was a dead man directing the rest of his absentminded attention on the task of getting on Light's nerves.

Under different circumstances, Light may have risen to the bait. He might have been annoyed – might have snapped and said of course he didn't want it, L had known he didn't want it when he had so considerately offered it to Light five minutes ago and Light had clearly said a polite, 'I don't want any ice cream, thank you,' so there shouldn't have been any confusion on the subject – but that didn't matter now. It was easy to ignore L's provoking attempt at faux-courtesy when the man was going to be dead in a few days anyway and was only trying to irritate Light out of his own helpless frustration over the fact that it seemed, once again, Light had been proven innocent.

So instead of annoying, the entire situation was just proving immensely satisfying.

Even though there wasn't much to do yet, not in the search for Kira and not as Kira himself, and even though they were currently locked in a sort of uncertain limbo that, were Light in a less triumphant mood, would have been driving him up the wall, Light was perfectly content to wait and direct the task force in fruitless circles and watch L flounder in confusion until the hour came when the carefully laid trap snapped shut around his throat.

"No, Ryuzaki, I'm not planning on eating that. Would you like it?"

L, perched on his sofa like a bird of prey about to spring into flight, cocked his head curiously at Light and rolled a dark eye over the cone waiting on the coffee table before him, the offensively bright pink ice cream already beginning to melt a little.

"I wonder if Kira likes ice cream."

And Light just smiled. "I have no idea. I, however, do not, so feel free to eat that."

Normally, L would have probably made some smartass comment about how Light's dislike of dessert increased the likelihood of him being a mass murderer, along with some bullshit which made him seem he actually knew what he was talking about and wasn't just pulling theories out of his ass, but now he just plucked the cone up and began licking at it distractedly, frowning at the wall and shooting occasional glances at Rem hovering in the corner, a silent spectator and unearthly, unavoidable reminder of the fate quickly rushing at them all.

L was confused – Light knew this. It was a delicious idea, one worthy of sinking his teeth into and savoring.

Light knew that inside L's mind, instinct was bidding a desperate war against facts, the two unable to coexist. The detective's intuition was insisting to him that Light was Kira, but the thirteen-day rule declared Light innocent, and until one or the other was verified without a doubt, L wouldn't be able to rest.

And the particularly delicious part was that L's need to prove one wrong would be what dragged him to his death. He would chase after that thirteen-day rule, chase down evidence of Light's guilt, but he would never really get the proof he was literally dying for.

At least, not until it was too late. Not until he was already sucking in his final, shuddering breath, death's icy claw clutched around his heart as he stared up into Kira's smirk, would he at last know the truth.

And then it would be over.

The Kira percentages, the constant, wide-eyed watching, the pointless conversations where they both knew the truth but danced around a direct confrontation anyway – it would all finally be at an end.

L would be dead.

Ryuzaki would be dead.

Light never called him L aloud anymore, just like L never called him Light-kun – always Yagami-kun, or even Yagami-san at times. It was just another silent sign between them, an unacknowledged indication of Kira's return. It was just another game of silly pretend for the sake of his father and the task force and their own twisted, childish enjoyment – a masquerade of lies and smiles and deadly insincerity.

Looking back now, Light realized just how much of what went on between him and L had been a game. L had been his crooked playmate, cavorting with him on death's ghastly playground in games of deceit and feints and struggle for domination and _catch me if you're able_. Dangerous, lethal games, perhaps, but games nonetheless, spun out tirelessly between Kira and L.

The ice cream, too, had been a game – small but undeniable, an annoying buzzing fly of a game that Light normally would snap at but now he just brushed aside. It was just a simple, half-hearted attempt on L's part to irritate Light by offering him something L knew he didn't like, and while Light was too close to victory at the point to care, he was mildly surprised L would risk his dessert just for an opportunity to get on his nerves.

He sneaked a sidelong glance over his shoulder at the detective, settled on his haunches and currently ignoring the ice cream held in his precarious grasp in favor of beginning his relentless interrogation of Rem once again, and Light remembered the six-foot chain that had, until recently, bound the two of them perpetually together, eradicating any hope for privacy for either of them.

Alright, maybe he wasn't surprised. L had plenty of ice cream; he would risk one cone's worth to annoy Light, particularly if he thought he'd get it back at the end anyway. L always had been the type to go to extremes to get what he wanted.

It didn't matter, though.

This was the final stretch of the game, when nothing mattered because all the pieces were already set in their last move, the end already determined. Months of plans and wasted days with absent memories and cuffed wrists were coming together, and L was caught in the death trap's center. This was all drawing to a heart-freezing, breath-stilling close.

A flicker of blond hair on the screen at the front of the room caught Light's eyes, and elation surged through his veins.

Misa was here.

L's death was another step closer.

* * *

><p>"It's been a while, Ryuk."<p>

His old haunter answered him only with a jagged-toothed grin and an unsuppressed burst of dark chuckles, laughing, inhuman eyes meeting his own.

Misa latched around his waist as tightly as a sailor's knot and whispered in a breathy whine against his ear, "He's been like that all day, Light. It's really creepy. Just staring and laughing! Is there something on Misa-Misa's face?"

Light tucked an arm around her affronted frame pressed against him and rubbed her back with a soothing, placating hand.

"He's always like that," he answered, giving Ryuk a cold-eyed warning glance over her shoulder, disguising it as a casual scan of the spacious lobby for the sake of the cameras and L's interested gaze, which he knew was staring unblinkingly through the lens. "It's just how he is."

It hadn't taken Light long to become accustomed to the tangle of twisted limbs that followed his shoulder around and the sinister chuckling that danced frequently in his ear, but he supposed to someone like Misa it would be a bit unnerving, even with her earlier exposure to Rem.

"Do you have the Note safe?"

Misa nodded eagerly against his shoulder.

"It's right here, under my shirt."

As though it had solidified at the mention of its hidden location, Light was instantly aware of the supple stiffness pushed against his front, muffled by clothing.

At least she'd had the sense to wear a jacket to conceal the deformity, he thought to himself with exasperation. Had she even considered the danger of coming here with that on her person and what would happen if L decided to search her? Stupid girl.

There was very little chance of that though, so there was no need to reprimand her this time, he supposed.

Besides – they had a Death Note in their control again. Or rather, Misa had a Death Note in her control again, and Light had Misa in his control. Everything was working out as planned.

"Good." He spoke the word softly in her ear, watching as a tiny tremor chased itself down the ridges of her spine. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Ryuk laughing again. "Keep it for now. I need you to carry on killing criminals for a little while in my place, okay? Can you do that for me?"

There was another eager nod into his collar.

"Of course I can! But Light," her voice was desperate and strained now as she pulled her face away to stare pleadingly up at him, "I've ruined everything! I can't, I can't remember that name you told Misa-Misa to remember!" Tears were beginning to sneak into the darkened rims of her eyes, and Light watched them impassively as they gathered, demented laughter an unfitting background to the scene. "But don't worry – I made the trade with Ryuk, and-"

Light stopped her with a kiss, the best use he'd found for the act.

"Misa!" he whispered hurriedly, allowing a serpent's concern to color his voice. "You traded for the eyes again? Idiot – your life is more important to me than the eyes. You shouldn't have wasted it like that."

Misa smiled up at him with a tenderness only pure love could produce, blinking mascara-tainted tears away.

"It's okay, Light. It was for you." There was no hesitation in her answer, and as she nuzzled into his shoulder again, her hands slipping up to rest on his chest and a content sigh upon her lips, he smiled in cold satisfaction. Those Shinigami eyes would be very useful, once L's prying eyes were dead and empty - and Misa would be blissfully under Light's thumb, willing to utilize them however he wanted.

Flowery hair product filled his awareness as he snaked his arms closer around her, itching his nose, but even that annoyance couldn't shake his pleased mood.

"I love you, Misa," he said, the lie easy and consciousless on his tongue. He felt delighted stiffening overtake her body, but he tightened his hold on her so she couldn't spring up and maul him as she clearly wanted. "Just listen for a minute. I need you to take the Death Note for a while and keep it safe for me, okay? I'm not in a position that I can judge criminals right now. Then, I need you to- Ryuk. What the fuck are you doing."

Misa twitched in his unyielding arms, undoubtedly startled at the sudden switch and the harsh ice in his voice, but Light didn't care – because Ryuk was doing something he usually only concerned himself with at night, when Light was asleep and not available for entertainment, and the sight of it chilled Light's blood in his veins.

The Shinigami had his notebook propped open in one hand, his otherworldly pen dancing across the surface, too far away to be stopped, especially under the gaze of the cameras. Ryuk was writing a name.

"What's going on?" Misa whispered from the safety of Light's arms, but her hushed urgency was brushed aside, Light's attention and cold fury locked on the hovering specter.

Shark teeth gleamed in the electric light as Ryuk grinned up at him, his pen now still as death.

"Don't worry, it's not your name Light – not yet, _hyuk_. But _she's_ gonna die in 'bout twenty minutes anyway. Don'cha think this is a better time, right after you've finally told her you love her? It's full of all that irony and tragedy you humans are so nuts about."

Misa had frozen in his embrace, her body turning cold and still like stone.

"Light," she whispered, her voice quieter than Light had ever heard it. "Is he…talking about…me?"

Light didn't answer her, didn't move his arms from their encircling hold.

"Ryuk." His voice, in contrast to her shaken hush, was low and silky and laced with poison. "Explain."

Ryuk tossed out some more of that shoulder-shaking laughter, laughter of which Light was just realizing the significance, and floated a lazy half-circle around them to grin at Light from over Misa's other shoulder.

"Don't you get it, Light? She was on borrowed time anyway – not that much left when she went and halved it twice. Her ticker was just about to run out anyway. Now she can die in your arms! It's kinda like, destiny, wouldn't ya say?"

Destiny.

Even caught in rage and shock, Light wanted to laugh and laugh at the twisted irony. Probably too much time spent with that damn Shinigami.

He was vaguely aware of Misa's body trembling between his arms.

"Light?" Her throat sounded tight, like there was no room for her voice to slip through, but there was a flood of foolish hope as she spoke his name, the way one would name a savior. "Am I…going to die?"

_Keep her calm; the cameras are watching._

"Don't worry," he breathed into her hair, one hand coming up to stroke it gently. "Everything's all right – he was talking about someone else. You'll be fine. I love you, remember? I wouldn't let you die."

He needed to distract her before her mind overrode her heart and realized the obvious holes in that lie, so he crooked a curled finger beneath her chin, lifted her head until her frightened gaze met his reassuring eyes, and kissed her.

He kissed her softly, he kissed her consumingly, and he kissed her like he was trying to drink her soul out of her. He kissed her until her little hands curled tightly around his jacket in sudden pain and her voice cried out in a quiet tremor, the taste of a heart attack on her tongue.

"L-light!"

Wide, alarmed blue eyes caught his own, now hard and unapologetic.

"Goodbye, Misa." Then he pressed his lips one last time to hers and swallowed her final, gasping breath.

And his arms were full of dead weight.

There went his Shinigami eyes.

* * *

><p>Several floors above, a light died inside a shock-numbed Shinigami.<p>

Misa was dead.

She hadn't been able to stop it.

She had wanted to, had been ready with pen clutched in her claws, but other Shinigami couldn't be killed by the Death Note's power. In the end, she had been useless.

Rem had known this would happen, Misa's death; she had seen the short remaining lifespan when she had first met her, before the bright girl had ever taken a careless axe of an eye trade to it. This was in part why Rem had been so desperate to make her remaining life as happy as she deserved.

But she hadn't expected her to make the trade the again. She hadn't expected the cruel death to come upon them so suddenly, tearing Misa from her sheltering protection.

When Rem had seen the almost empty red numbers float onto the screen, following Misa around like a silent prophecy of doom, she had been filled with a deadened shock as she realized the girl must have once again forfeited half her life for the sake of misbegotten devotion. Rem had instantly pulled out her own notebook then – unconcerned for any watching human eyes – prepared to stop the death if it came by another's hands, as Gelus had done not long ago. If fate decided to serve its deadly card by means of another human again, she would gladly take Misa's fate for her own.

With that in mind, she had watched Yagami Light, Kira, especially closely – the prime suspect for being a tool in fate's game as he was the only human near at the time. Too bad she never thought it would come from her own capricious kind.

By the time she noticed Ryuk's actions, it had been too late. Too late to stop it, too late to write Misa's name in her own Death Note simultaneously and invoke the 0.06 second rule which would cancel the death, too late to do anything but stare in frozen horror as Misa collapsed in Yagami Light's arms, like a puppet whose strings had been sliced. Misa was dead.

Rem's deadened ears barely heard the surprised shouts of the humans in the room with her as they watched the sudden tragedy unfold, all privy to witness that boy's fautless acting – his shocked face and quickly growing franticness as he clutched her slackened frame, sinking unsteadily to the ground with her and beginning to shake her shoulders as her head lolled lifelessly on her neck, as though shaking alone could wake her from death's sleep. There was no sound, but his mouth could be seen framing a single helpless, urgent word: Misa's name.

A door banged against the wall as the humans all fled out of it, and Rem was left in an empty room with sharp pain and dulled senses.

"Shinigami Rem."

Or not quite empty. That strange human, the one who held his body like a Shinigami and had a lonely letter for a name, had remained behind and was now staring at her with intent eyes and a serious, quietly urgent demeanor.

"Did you write Misa's name?"

Rem's claws at once became aware of the notebook and pen clutched in their useless grasp.

"…No. I did not." She didn't know why, but she held the empty page out with a long arm for his eyes to fall upon and verify her hollow words.

The human quickly scanned the blank white of the page. "I see," he said simply, pulling his thumb up to his mouth for human-dull teeth to nip at. "Then can you tell me who her killer was? Or was the heart attack of natural causes, unlikely as the case may be?"

"It was…" Rem's mouth was moving of its own accord, but she had neither the will to care nor a reason to stop it. There were no rules against this. "It was another Shinigami."

A sharpened black gaze darted to her empty eyes.

"Under orders from a human?"

Again Rem's mouth moved, again it answered a pointless question.

"No…I cannot know for sure, but I think not." She knew Ryuk. Ryuk would have done it for some sudden whim, a careless search for entertainment, not because of an order from any human.

"Is there any danger of this Shinigami writing any of the names of the rest of us in this building?"

Her eyes flicked to the monitor. Ryuk's tools were put away as he hovered over the human pair on the floor, a wide grin on his face.

"…I don't think so."

The human in front of her nodded and turned to stare at the computer screen again to watch as Yagami Light, still kneeling beside Misa's body and holding her with apparent tenderness and despair, was eventually joined by the others, the one who shared part of his name pulling him off Misa's body and into his own arms, looking awkward and unsure and stunned as he uncertainly comforted his son. Even on the screen, though, his love and concern could be seen.

Rem had no one now, no one to whom she could give love or concern. She was empty, abandoned to apathy, any remaining vitality drained from her with the remainder of Misa's life. What she did now didn't matter. There was nothing of purpose she could do now.

…She could kill Yagami Light.

She could kill him, and it wouldn't even kill her.

After all, he was the reason Misa had given away her life so carelessly. He was the one who had stolen her heart and her common sense, the one she had given everything for. He was why she was dead.

He ought to die.

Easily as a breath of air, her pen made a single stroke on pure white paper.

"_Rem! Promise me, even if I die, you won't let anything happen Light!"_

It made another stroke, the flash of memory brushed aside.

"_Please!"_

"_But, Misa-"_

"_You have to watch out for him, as if he were me! Promise me!"_

Another two strokes.

"_I don't think-"_

"_No! You have to! Don't you understand? I've already given him my heart – he'll have it even if I'm dead! So I need this, I need to know he'll be happy – promise me you'll keep him happy and alive as long as possible! I __**need**__ you to do this, Rem!"_

"…_All right. I promise."_

"_Thank you Rem!"_

Rem's pen stilled.

She had already failed Misa once today. Could she break her promise now?

"What are you doing, Shinigami Rem?" The voice was calm, but there was an underlying tension and anxiety to the deep tone as black eyes noticed her actions.

Rem looked at the half-formed name which tainted the page before her.

"…Nothing. I'm doing nothing."

And she gently closed the notebook, then slipped note and pen away.

_For you, Misa. I will keep my promise._

* * *

><p>Light had been expecting to die any second.<p>

Even as he clung to Misa's stilled body, self-preserving instinct taking over and pushing his own body to act the part of the terrified boyfriend, his mind had already realized that with Misa dead, there was no buffer between him and the overprotective Shinigami that had loved her.

Rem could kill him any moment. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. His death could be only heartbeats away.

Then adrenaline overrode all else and he snapped into action.

"Ryuk," he whispered hurriedly under his breath, his face hidden from electronic eyes as he pretended to try to pull Misa from death's hold. "If a Shinigami holds a Note, does it remain visible to human eyes?"

"Uh…I don't think so? 'Cause it's from the Shinigami realm."

Light quickly wormed the condemning Death Note from beneath the dead girl's shirt, blocking his actions from the cameras with his body as he hid it temporarily in his own jacket. The task force would arrive any second, and if that notebook were to be found on her dead body, the proof of her guilt would be almost unavoidable. It would at least be proof enough for L. And if it were found on _Light's_ body – dead or alive – that would be as good as signing a confession.

And Light knew, even if he died, he couldn't let that bastard win so easily. Even if Light was about to pass away into nothingness, he would leave L behind to wallow in confusion.

"Ryuk," he ordered in a harsh whisper, pretending to be frantically searching for signs of life from Misa's body, his fingers pressed to her cold neck and his cheek above her parted lips. "Get your worthless piece of shit ass down here and take this notebook."

"_Hyuk_, you sure you want to be talking to me like that right now? And I told ya Light – I'm not on your side. What makes you think I'm going to help you?"

Misa's body was still warm beneath Light, a gruesome pretence of life, while the tile was cold beneath his knees, which were beginning to ache, but his smile was deadlier than poison as he flashed it up at the Shinigami, carefully kept pointed away from the cameras.

"I'm not asking for help, _Ryuk_. I'm _telling_ you to get the _fuck_ down here and take back this notebook. _Now._"

A mouth of knives grinned down at him. "Ya know, you're the scariest human I know, Light. And I mean that as a compliment. But if I take this, you realize you're basically forfeiting ownership of it, right?" he asked, swooping down to push his sharp, demented smile right in front of Light's face. His breath filled Light's nose, a haze of musky death and a strange tang Light would bet money was apple.

"That means I'm free to go up to the Shinigami realm, no obligations," Ryuk reminded him with a deep, twisting chuckle. "You still have your other Note, so you won't lose your memories, but you can't really use that one, can ya? That L guy's got it all locked up. So what happens if I don't come back this time? Maybe I'll just give the notebook to some other human. Someone with…apple trees, let's say."

Despite the desperate situation, Light found a pleased smirk curling the corners of his lips at the Shinigami's gall.

"You're really going to try twisting this to your advantage and threatening me into giving you more apples? I had no idea you were such a gutsy bastard, Ryuk. I just don't know whether to be impressed or to be exasperated that you're wasting this opportunity on something as insignificant as fruit."

Ryuk's grin stretched impossibly wider.

"I've picked up on a few things, hanging around you all the time. And as a Shinigami, there isn't much else to care about than fruit. So how 'bout it? Is a useable Death Note worth a few more apples a day?"

Light's eyes flickered towards the elevator, and the slim arrow calmly informed him it was six floors away and coming closer.

Damn insolent Shinigami. Light didn't have the time for this.

"It was a good try, Ryuk," he said, his head dropped in apparent despair as he pulled Misa's body into his arms, though his voice was all ice and composed amusement. "But you've missed an important lesson: don't make threats you can't follow through with. So don't fuck with me, idiot. We both know you'll get too bored following someone else around, no matter how many apples you have."

"Maybe," Ryuk conceded with a twitch of his shoulder that was too inhuman to be really called a shrug as he straightened up in the air and began drifting leisurely circles around the two on the floor. "But are you sure you want to risk it?"

And Light's own shoulders shook minutely as he laughed, though to any other eyes (electronic or otherwise) but Ryuk's the movement would only have seemed dipped in grief.

"You really are a sly son of a bitch when you want to be," he said, cutting his laughter off and speaking quickly, hyperaware of the ever approaching elevator and the slim notebook tucked just inside his jacket, his body curled concealing over Misa's body in his arms. "All right then Ryuk, let's make a deal. I'll give you two weeks to look for someone you'd rather have possess the Death Note. At the end of two weeks, come see me again and we'll continue this conversation. Now get the fuck down here."

_Ding._

To Light's left, the lift doors began to glide open.

"Misa!" Matsuda's frantic voice slipped out through the doors before his body could fit. "Light! Is she okay?"

"_Now,_ Ryuk," Light hissed, his face buried in one clutched hand.

Finally, Ryuk's dark, jagged laughter twisted around Light. "Deal. See ya later, Light." Then a burnt-black claw of a hand slipped inside his jacket and curled around the notebook cover, and a moment later Ryuk had disappeared completely, a ghost's chuckle the last to fade away.

"Have fun," Light breathed to the seemingly empty air, and he felt something sharp and invisible slice lightly along his cheek in reply, leaving a thin line of apple-red blood behind.

Shitty Shinigami. Did he really think Light wouldn't pay him back for that? He'd better enjoy those two weeks.

Then gentle hands were tugging at his shoulder, his father's voice in his ear, as the rest of task force began to crowd around the lifeless body like chickens to feed.

"Light, son, you need to let go of her now. Let Watari-san check her over."

Light released Misa and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet and into his father's too-tight arms, slipping easily into his role of devastated lover as Watari fruitlessly checked her vital signs, surrounded by the anxious task force.

He wasn't dead yet, Light realized, the knowledge suddenly flooding his system. Rem had definitely had plenty of time to write his name down, yet his heart was still beating steadily against his ribs. He was alive, for now.

That wasn't to say everything was in the clear now. Not only had he lost his only pair of Shinigami eyes, but the only Death Note currently available for use had wandered off and wouldn't be back for two weeks, and he'd have to make do with the tiny scrap concealed in his watch for now.

But the greatest problem lay, unsurprisingly, with L. Light knew the fact that Misa had died in his arms wouldn't be overlooked by the detective, and the coincidence would be ruthlessly used against him. L was a determined bastard, already positive of Light's guilt, and this was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Light pushed away from his father's suffocating hold (how old did he think he was, anyway?) to watch in flawless desperation as Watari straightened from Misa's still form.

"She's dead," Watari announced calmly, his grey eyes landing softly on Light like a gentle wind, and Light realized in the back of his mind it was the first time the aged man had ever looked directly at him. Those sorrowed, dignified eyes didn't leave his, even as cries of shock and grief from the others (particularly Matsuda) clouded around them. He stared quietly into Light's eyes, and Light wasn't sure if his gaze was an attempt at accusation or solace.

It was…unexpected. Light had always dismissed Watari before, writing him off as L's tea-and-cake lackey, but that gaze was too perceptive for a mindless minion. Watari would bear watching.

Then a phone buzzed and those eyes averted once again as Watari withdrew a small phone from his pocket, raising it to his ear.

"Miss Amane has passed away, sir," he said by way of greeting, and Light listened intently while pretending to stare at Misa's slackened features in numbed shock. "Yes, all evidence indicates a heart attack."

There was a pause, no doubt as L relayed further instructions, but as hard Light strained his ears he couldn't hear. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a grey gaze flicker to his face.

"…Very well, sir. I will take care of it immediately."

The phone beeped off, and Light lifted his chin to meet Watari's eyes once more.

"While L would like to express his deepest condolences for this tragedy," Watari began, and Light wanted to laugh out loud and declare it for the bullshit it was but of course did not, "he has ordered for you to be returned to confinement for the time being. He hopes you can understand the necessity."

Light's eyes fell on Misa's body with pretended sorrow, stealing himself time to think.

This development was to be expected. L was a paranoid bastard with the international clout to get away with more felonies than an organized crime syndicate, and Light had just given him an adequate cause – adequate for L, at least – to lock him away again. That was how L reacted to situations such as this, after all – Light knew this. L was someone who, when met with something he couldn't understand, preferred to tie it down and watch it until he did, if he could find a reasonable excuse to do so. And, being L, he had much more slush room for what was considered reasonable than the rest of the world.

It didn't matter though. In the end, L still didn't have enough evidence to convict Light. It would just be a little more wasted time in a dim cell, then Light would be released again. As much influence as L had, he couldn't keep Light there forever without cause. In fact, if the outraged shouts currently storming out of his father's mouth were any indication, it was possible Light wouldn't even need to spend the entire night there.

So, ignoring the protests from the others, he pulled his eyes to Watari's and nodded.

"I understand, Watari-san. But…" his eyes drifted meaningfully to the corpse sprawled on the cold, spotless tile.

"Miss Amane's body will be cared for with the utmost respect, so you may be at ease concerning that matter."

Light nodded again and turned to his upset father.

"Don't worry, Dad – I'm sure it won't be long," he said, putting on a brave, grief-tinged smile. "I'm sure L can see there's no way I could have written her name while-" he faltered a moment, feigning a moment of overpowering emotion, before gaining control again. "-while I was holding her."

A heavy hand clasped his shoulder, serious eyes staring into his. "Are you sure you'll be all right, son? I know you're strong, but no matter how strong you are, you still just went through a traumatic event. It's okay if you're not all right."

Light answered with a slightly unsteady nod. "I'm- I'll be fine. Just…make sure she's taken care of? She… She deserved much better than this."

Light might have gone on, but at that moment he found himself wrapped in Matsuda's tight embrace, the man getting his shoulder wet with tears – and there better not have been any snot mixed in with it, because Light really didn't want to blow his cover by punching him one in the face.

"It's not fair!" Matsuda wailed into his jacket. "She was so young, and you were finally returning her feelings! I'm- I'm so sorry, Light!"

Light patted the sniffling policeman's back softly, fighting to keep a grimace of distaste from his lips.

"Um…thanks, Matsuda. That…means a lot to me." Gingerly extracting himself from Matsuda's trembling hold, he turned to Watari once again. "All right, I'm ready. Please lead the way, Watari-san. Unless, will I need to be cuffed again?"

"I'm afraid so, Yagami-kun. If I may have your wrists a moment?"

Light obligingly held out his wrists as Watari withdrew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket (Light had a momentary, incongruous comparison flash into his mind, of fictional English nannies and limitless carpetbags, which he quickly pushed aside), and once the cold metal was coiled around him again he allowed Watari to lead him off towards a narrow hallway, footsteps tapping quietly on tile. He didn't spare a glance back at Misa's body, which was being gingerly lifted by Mogi and Aizawa, as he finally allowed his seething anger to be acknowledged.

Damn it, damn it, _damn it_ to fucking _hell_. This was not how things were supposed to go.

Everything was uncertain now, all guarantees and careful plans destroyed with the silencing of one heart, and it certainly wasn't the right one that had been snuffed out. It was supposed to be L's heart that froze in his chest, L's breath that died in his throat, L's eyes that closed in the final sleep of death – not Misa's. And there was no one even for Light to reasonably blame, save the cruel indifference of fate and the universe, which just made the galling irony worse.

But Light could handle this.

This was a momentary set-back, a bump in the road, but Light wouldn't be worthy of being Kira if he couldn't deal with such unexpected developments. It seemed the game wasn't over yet, and he would not allow L to so easily turn the tables and claim victory for his own.

_I will see you dead, L. Enjoy your borrowed time._

Next round, there would be no mistakes. Light would make sure of it.

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><p><em>"Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."<em>

_-Paracelsus_

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><p><em>Author's Note: Yes, this is one of <em>_**those**__ stories – one of those 'Oh look! L didn't die! They can fuck now!' stories that blithely ignores the last five and a half volumes in order to fashion a different ending, in which there is much more interaction, conflict, and general gayness between L and Light. I can't say how quickly this will be updated, since it's mostly just here for me when I need a break. Yes, I give my mind a rest by being a horrendously melodramatic angstmuffin. It soothes me. I kill characters off and cry about it. So really, don't take this too seriously. No, DO take this seriously! Angst must be taken seriously, otherwise it's no…um…fun._

_Alright, alright – joking aside, this story will actually have a plot, not just me picking random characters and tossing them off cliffs for the sake of satisfying my inner angst whore. I promise. No plotless killings or drama, scout's honour._


	2. Poisoned Kiss

**Chapter Two**

_Poisoned Kiss_

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><p>L had brushed against Death.<p>

He knew this without a doubt now. Were he the dramatic sort, he would have claimed to have felt its icy fingertips reaching for his skin, its musky, stilled breath already sneaking into his lungs. Death's presence had been oppressive, unavoidable, and in every glance of Kira's knowing eyes – and melodrama aside, L knew it had almost claimed him.

The realization of his impending death had come several nights before, the night after his twenty-fifth birthday. He had known at that time that he was going to die at Kira's hand, and soon.

No – at Light's hand.

The chilled night air had brought him enough clarity at least to confirm his suspicions about Light – confirm his hopes, his fears. Light was Kira, the original Kira, and he was likely going to succeed in killing L. L had felt reasonably certain of it – ninety-five percent likelihood, he had figured with a resigned sort of detachment.

And, for the first time, he had thought maybe it wouldn't be such a dreadful way to go. At the hands of his first true rival, his first true equal. His first true friend.

L lied a lot, more than anyone but Watari and Light himself probably suspected, but that hadn't been a lie. Not…exactly a lie.

Light _was_ what he'd imagined a friend would be, though he doubted most friendships had to worry about the issue of who would kill whom first. Most friendships didn't have to worry about supernatural notebooks and silent Shinigami and deadly skirmishes over the fate of the world. Most friendships weren't between international super-detectives and boys who, before out of their teens, had killed more people than a major natural disaster.

Maybe Light wasn't his friend. Maybe L didn't have enough experience with normal relationships to tell. Maybe there wasn't a word for what Light was.

But whatever Light was to L, he was definitely his first.

And L, caught in a sort of suspended melancholy brought by the heaviness of his impending, inescapable fate, had decided that if he had to die, then to die by Light's hand wouldn't be the worst way to do it.

But he hadn't died. Misa had died. And L was glad.

And no, he wouldn't revise that statement to make it more diplomatic or socially acceptable – if one them had to die, he was glad it had been Misa. Because for some reason, those two possible deaths seemed undeniably related in his mind, mutually exclusive. He had no proof but his well-honed instincts, but he felt fairly confident that, had Misa's heart not stopped, his would have. Both could not have continued beating. And while it was vaguely unfortunate Misa had died, L wouldn't deny he was glad it hadn't been him. His passive resignation had left him now, gone once Death's shadow had vanished from his shoulder, and he was as determined as ever to bring Kira to justice now.

He just couldn't understand why Misa had died in the first place. It made no sense, logically.

If the Shinigami Rem was telling the truth, and L was inclined to believe it was, then Misa's death had not been by Kira's hand, not even orchestrated by Kira's will. It had just been…a coincidence.

L did not believe in coincidences, as a general rule. Not when they involved Kira.

And even if it had been a coincidence, just a random killing by a random Shinigami as Rem claimed, it raised the question of why Shinigami killed humans at all. Perhaps if L understood that, he could discern a logical explanation for why Misa had been chosen as a victim.

Unfortunately, at first glance there seemed to be much about Shinigami that defied logic and the very laws of nature themselves. And L did not like that.

However, if there was one thing L had learned during his twenty-five years of life, it was that logic was always present, if not necessarily immediately apparent. Even the most psychotic and apparently unpredictable of criminals followed their own sort of logic; there was always a reason for their actions that could be dissected. Whether it was a chemical imbalance in the brain, a traumatic childhood experience, a moment of rationality-impeding passion or something else, there was always a reason for why they acted as they did, and there was always a logic and pattern to their behavior, even if that logic was twisted and warped by their own madness.

It just meant L had to use a _different, new_ set of rules in order to understand it. And he felt sure Shinigami could be understood the same way.

When he had first been confronted with the possibility of Shinigami, it had been alarming – he admitted to that. It wasn't the Shinigami themselves he was alarmed by, it was the idea that they could exist. The existence of Shinigami was not something that fit with the laws of nature, and for L, who had spent his life making order and sense and logic of things, it had been disturbing.

But just at first. Because upon further consideration, L had realized Shinigami did fit with the laws of nature – just not the laws of nature as L had currently understood them. Like the early physicists, L's understanding of the universe had been expanded, the laws expounded upon, and all it had required was a slight rearranging of his mindset in order to understand.

However, he still didn't understand the details of their existence – such as why they killed, which was the applicable puzzle at the moment.

For instance, the primary reason – not the only reason, but the primary one – animals killed was for survival, either food or defense. For humans, the reasons were more varied, and more psychological than instinctual, though they were equally explainable. And L felt that if he were to understand the logic behind why Shinigami killed, Misa's death wouldn't be so apparently inexplicable nor would it be such an unimaginable coincidence.

Unfortunately, the only Shinigami available for L to interrogate was being annoyingly tightlipped about the matter. About a lot of matters, actually. Why a Shinigami would give a human its killing power, what the trade for Shinigami eyes entailed, why Shinigami killed in the first place – these were all questions concerning which he was still very much in the dark.

L had grown accustomed to the evasive answers, to the_ I don't know_ and the _that's only something I can tell the owner of the Death Note_, but he felt Rem was being even more taciturn now than before Misa's death. There had been a moment, immediately following Misa's death-collapse, when Rem's tongue had been looser, giving him answers with an almost stunned air, but now the Shinigami had clamped up even tighter than before. L wondered why.

He wondered why it seemed that the Shinigami was almost waiting for something, waiting for something to happen before it knew what to do next – but what exactly it was waiting for, L couldn't tell.

Instruction, maybe? Instruction from Kira?

Instruction from _Light_, currently bound and asleep (or doing a very good impression of it) in the well-remembered cell from before?

That could make sense.

If Rem _did_ happen to be under Kira's direction – though why a god of death would agree to subject itself under a human was another matter L did not yet understand – and if Misa's death _had_ been an unexpected, disrupting wrench thrown in the plans, then it made sense that Rem wouldn't be sure what to do without further instruction from Kira. And if Light _was_ Kira, as L's gut told him he was, then there would currently be no opportunity for Rem to visit him and get new instructions without being caught by the cameras.

In that case, it was pointless to continue throwing questions at the Shinigami until it had time to confer with Kira. L felt reasonably confident in his interrogation skills, but Rem was considerably stubborn and uncommunicative and there wasn't much L could do about that, besides relentless questioning – after all, there seemed to be no way to physically persuade a Shinigami though tactics of questionable ethics, nor did there seem to be anything that could be used as positive incentive.

In short, Shinigami couldn't be tortured or bribed, and L found it annoying.

Humans, however, could. They could also be handcuffed and stuck in a cage and watched, as Light was currently proving so helpfully.

But even that had its limits. L had barely managed to send the protesting, protective father of the suspect home, with the false assurance that Light's imprisonment was more a precaution than actual suspicion of guilt and that he would likely be released in the morning. And L could already predict that Yagami Soichiro would show up early in the morning – only a few hours away now – with tired, worried eyes and no sleep, ready to resume his demands for L to listen to reason and let his innocent son out.

L did not appreciate being told to listen to reason, as if he were some sort of illogical being with no use for rationality. L was always seeking out reason, even if it didn't appear that way to those more blind than he, whose instincts were dulled and easily fooled.

It was the way L worked, guided by his instincts, and it was how he had always worked – and he felt his successful history spoke rather favorably for his methods. There were times when his instincts, his gut, whispered to him that _this is the truth_, _this is the culprit_, and when that happened all that remained was for his brain to find the logical explanation for _why_ it was so. The reason was always there, he just needed to prove it.

The evidence of Light's guilt was there, L just needed to find it. Then they would see that L _was_ listening to reason, thank you very much – it just wasn't apparent yet.

Though, he doubted Soichiro would really appreciate that fact when it was his son L had proved to be an international mass murderer. But that wasn't L's concern.

L's concern at the moment lay with finding the evidence of Light's guilt – which was why he was currently standing, at three o'clock in the morning, outside Light's cell, watching the quiet rise and fall of his chest in sleep.

In a way, they were back where they had started in the Kira case.

Yes, they now knew how Kira carried out his supernatural killings, and while that was a rather large chunk of the answer, L felt no closer to catching Kira. He was where he had started – suspecting Light but with no way to prove it.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true.

If the killings had started back up again once Misa and Light were released from surveillance, then L would have had reasonable cause to test the thirteen-day rule – which, if proven wrong and combined with the resumed Kira murders, would have been sufficient to warrant more drastic measures against Light and Misa. But that hadn't happened. The killings hadn't begun again. Instead, Misa had died, leaving them all in something of a flurry of uncertainty – and L had reacted by locking Light back up, having found a reasonable excuse to do so again.

The problem was, even if L tested the thirteen-day rule now and proved it wrong, without the Kira killings resuming after Higuchi's death, it wouldn't be enough to prove Light's guilt satisfactorily. It would be a definite hit to Light's credibility, but just alone it wouldn't be enough to solidly prove that Higuchi hadn't actually been Kira all along – despite how obviously false that idea was.

As it was, even if L released Light now, Light was too clever to begin killing again right away, when he knew it would just bring suspicion to him once more and give reason for L to test the thirteen-day rule.

Silently, L gnawed at his thumb and watched Light shift on his blanket-less bench that served as a bed, hands still cuffed awkwardly and probably rather uncomfortably, and he furrowed his brow in thought as circles of questions churned through his brain.

He had slipped away to Light's cell, tonight, shuffling quietly through the dark, empty halls of the skyscraper, hoping to find answers from Light's sleeping face. So far, all he had found was more questions. And as he watched Light sleep peacefully, untouched for the moment by mortal concerns, he found himself wondering what Light's original plan had been had Misa _not_ died – supposing, of course, that Misa's death had been an undesirable event, as L hypothesized.

Surely Light must have realized that if the killings began again upon their release, L would have tested the thirteen-day rule. So what would he have done? L knew better than to believe Light would have abandoned punishing criminals in favor of maintaining his illusion of innocence. But how could he have pursued his role as Kira without giving L cause to test the rule?

Would he have laid low for a while and led the investigation in circles while L was consumed by confusion and pointless questioning of the Shinigami? Would he have found another scapegoat to blame the killings on, someone innocent and unknown?

…Or maybe, he would have wanted the rule to be tested? But that made no sense. Why would he have wanted L to disprove the rule that assured his innocence?

Unless…

Oh, that was an interesting thought.

Unless, for whatever reason, L testing the rule was what would have led to his own death.

Had the rule been not just a way to prove Light's innocence, but also a trap for L? L wouldn't put it past him – and it explained why he had recently felt his death creeping up on him. That theory made sense, provided, of course, that the rule really was fake.

But if it was true, why would testing the rule result in L's death? Was there an inherent law of some sort to the notebook that would have been broken by the test? L just didn't have enough information about the notebook and Shinigami in general to conclude the answer.

And in the end, these _what if_'s were of little import, however much they may have bothered L's curiosity. Right now, the matter of most significance was deciding his next course. Because he would admit, he was a little unsure how to proceed. And watching Light sleep, while very interesting, wasn't bringing him any clarity on the issue.

Not taking his thoughtful frown from Light's curled form, L punched in the code (digits 22 through 49 of pi, backwards) in the keypad and quietly shuffled into the cell, gently shutting the bars behind him.

Light's face was relaxed in sleep, his hair spilling into his eyes with a sort of childish, roguish charm. His lips had fallen open slightly, and L rested his eyes on them, wondering what it would take to get those lips to spill their owner's secret, to reveal the mind behind.

To frame the words _I am Kira_.

Because L was beginning to believe the surest – and perhaps only – way to prove Light's guilt was to induce him to confess. Waiting for him to make a mistake was too slow – not even taking into account Light's cunning, which made the likelihood of a mistake happening smaller than with most criminals – and circumstantial evidence was inadequate.

The problem was, L couldn't formulate an idea that seemed liable to stimulate a confession from Light.

The obvious answer, torture, was definitely not outside of L's scruples.

Were it to come down to it, L knew he would have no problem absconding with Light across the globe, away from the misguided morals of the task force, and subjecting him to more tongue-loosening conditions than he had yet been exposed to. There wouldn't even be any pesky questions of legality concerning the authenticity of such a questionably-wrought confession, because he was _L_, and if L told the world's governments that Yagami Light was Kira, they'd execute him without hesitation.

In fact, if L wanted, he felt confident he could close the Kira case right now, not only by claiming Light was Kira but by performing the execution himself – he had the authority to do so, after all. It would just be a matter of pressing the cold tip of a gun to Light's temple, pulling the trigger, and sending the video tape to the necessary bigwigs with the message _Kira is dead_, signed with his usual moniker. Then, of course, cleaning up the brain splatters and disappearing before certain devastated fathers showed up with murderous and suicidal intentions – because again, that wasn't L's concern. His only concern was catching Kira.

But L knew he wouldn't do it that way. Executing Light without proof wouldn't be a victory, nor would it bring any satisfaction. A hollow triumph, nothing more, and L didn't want it.

But that still didn't answer the question of _what course next?_ – because while L could definitely get away with torturing the truth out of Light, he'd prefer to not take that path unless strictly necessary. The childish truth of the matter was that it felt like cheating – a victory almost as hollow as shooting Light through the skull right now. It wouldn't be proving L's superior abilities, just his brute strength and clout as L. It would be winning a game of intellectual prowess through crude force, and L found the thought distasteful.

Though, if necessary, he wouldn't have any qualms doing so. Crude methods or not, L was willing to do whatever it took to win, and matters were getting such that L lately had been thinking it was perhaps time to quietly disappear, his suspect and supernatural murder weapon in tow. It certainly was the only method L could think of at the moment that would be sufficient to make Light confess.

Perhaps it was time for such drastic measures.

If Light had thought L's methods unethical and drastic before, L wondered what he'd think when he realized L was perfectly capable of methods even more extreme. He wondered if Light was even aware torture was a possible card in L's deck.

Had L asked himself that question a couple of weeks ago, he would have been unsure what to answer. But now, since Higuchi's death and since the hard, cunning edge in Light's eyes seemed to have been magically regained, driving out any naiveté from his gaze, L felt confident that the answer was yes – yes, Light was very well aware that torture was a possibility.

L felt he could guess how Light would react.

He'd act shocked at first, as though he couldn't imagine that L would resort to such methods – like anyone else on the task force would feel, though for Light it would just be an act.

Denial would be next, Light laughing and giving a _come on, L, you can't scare me into confessing_, as though he honestly believed L was just bluffing.

Next, once he pretended to realize that L wasn't bluffing, would come the fear, and L wondered how much of it would be real. L didn't doubt Light's courage, but the prospect of torture could twist even the bravest's insides with terror.

Quick on fear's heels would be anger, L knew – that beautiful self-righteous anger that would blaze from Light's eyes as he snarled and mocked L for his _brave_ brand of justice, never once acknowledging the hypocrisy of his seething words.

After that, the challenge. The _go ahead and try it, bastard_, and the scathing _I dare you._ The scornful smile, the contempt, the biting pride – Light would push himself into the position of a martyr, snatch the moral high-ground because _he_ was the one about to be tortured, _he_ was the one in the right, simply because the law could not yet prove his crimes. But L _was _the Law, and L's ethics had always been a bit colder than most; Light knew this.

And beneath it all, beneath all of Light's pretense of his own twisted Stages of Grief, Light would be hiding a pleased, smug gleam in his eyes – the knowledge that L had been forced into such drastic measures and couldn't beat him through cunning alone. He would be insufferable, L knew.

At least until the pain began.

L wondered, from a purely academic standpoint, how long Light would be able to withstand the pain without breaking. Because everyone broke – broke or died, that was. It was simply a matter of time.

That was not meant to sound melodramatic or unnecessarily heartless and cruel; it was merely a statement of fact. When placed under severe enough stress, everyone eventually cracked. It was the reality of torture.

Light had already proven very stubborn, with a will made of diamond, and L believed it would take the harshest conditions break him.

But torture – especially the harshest sort – more often than not brought about fake confessions, which was another reason torture would be a cheap veneer of a win.

It was a problem. Not legally – as he'd mentioned before, L had no problem slipping around such issues – but personally. The doubt would always be there, niggling at the back of L's mind, long after Light was convicted and sentenced.

It would consume him and his brain, spinning question after unanswerable question until L was driven mad by the doubt: Maybe he hadn't induced a real confession. Maybe it was just a confession made of desperation. Maybe L had lost, even once Light was dead.

And it wouldn't be a real win – and for L, after finding the case of his lifetime, this was not acceptable.

But L's thoughts were broken then, as beneath his impassive gaze Light murmured a breath of a sigh and shifted in his sleep, then sleepy eyes drifted open and L was no longer merely an observer.

"Hello, Light-kun," he said.

He waited patiently as Light's glazed eyes blinked at him, still not fully awake, staring at him as though L were a specter escaped from a dream as sleep bled into reality.

L waited patiently a moment, allowing him to regain some of his bearings, and when Light's eyes blinked and stared at him with sharpened but still drowsy familiarity, he spoke again.

"Though perhaps I should say 'hello Kira-kun' instead? It is one and the same, after all, is it not?"

Light's eyes managed to roll disdainfully despite how they were obviously still half caught in sleep.

"Mhnn…not…not this again," he sighed, then his eyes drifted shut again and his head turned away from L. "Go away, L, 'm tired," he murmured, shifting in search of sleep again, his back now completely turned to L. L watched indifferently as his suspect's shirt slipped slowly from the hill of his hip and bared a thin stripe of skin as it settled a little higher up on his waist.

There was really no reason to keep Light awake – he had nothing to ask and hadn't meant to shake him from his rest, had merely been watching him as his brain mused – but he found his mouth speaking up, suddenly, his instincts telling him to stop Light from slipping back into sleep.

"I only need a moment of your time, Light-kun," he was saying, as though he had intended this all along. "Then you can resume your session of wasteful unconsciousness."

Light didn't move for a moment, seemingly attempting to ignore his jailor detective, but when L dug a bony finger into the small of his back he squirmed away and grunted quietly, his cuffed hands twisting to swipe distractedly at L's finger, already long gone. Then he settled back down again, stilling, his breath beginning to deepen once more as though he truly believed L would be so easily dissuaded.

L prodded him again, this time right between his scapulas, and Light groaned and jerked away but finally twisted and sat up, his hands trying to rub at his eyes before apparently remembering they were cuffed behind his back. Instead, he blinked a few times then turned his bleary, belligerent eyes on L.

"Well, what do you want," he asked, his voice a blend of tired frustration and resignation, sleep-roughened but still with the underlying smoothness that characterized his vocalizations. "Have you come to let me out?"

L watched him carefully, taking in the weary set to his face and the mouth already snapping open in soft yawn.

"I'm afraid not," he answered quietly, and his brain easily provided him with an excuse and a means of further provoking Light into consciousness. "Not yet. I've actually come to inquire after your emotional well-being, as it was not twelve hours ago that your second-in-command was killed. I felt it my responsibility to look after your psychological needs in this case."

Light's yawn cut off suddenly, and he blinked a few more times before narrowing sleepy but still dangerous eyes on L.

"You woke me up, at an ungodly hour of the morning, after imprisoning me under suspicion of having a hand in my _girlfriend's_ death and also accusing me – _again_ – of being the supernatural killer of thousands of others. How do you _think_ I'm doing?"

"There is no need to be quite so touchy, Light-kun. I was merely trying to fulfill my obligations as a friend."

Light glared. "Go to hell," he snapped out, then somehow managed to flop gracefully back onto his side, his back an uncompromising wall of silence. L glanced in mild fascination at the loose shirt which had bunched slightly upwards again, and he wondered if Light noticed the cool air gliding against lower back and stomach, leaving tiny goosebumps in its wake.

He cleared his throat and spoke again.

"I assure you, it was not my intention to upset you. Though I am sure you must realize the suspicious nature of the circumstances. After all, it was immediately upon kissing you that Misa's unfortunate death struck. It makes one wonder, does it not, if there is any credence to the fairytale theory of a kiss of poison."

Light lasted seven seconds, which was two seconds longer than L had hypothesized, before flipping around to his other side and regarding L with an annoyed, gradually awakening gaze that had a commendably convincing layer of deep misery forged as an undertone.

"I'm tired, L," he said, a cross between aggression and despair. "My girlfriend- my girlfriend is dead, and I still haven't been able to muster enough energy to even fully process it." The tiny crack in his voice on the word 'girlfriend' was all the more convincing for how slight it was, and L felt the sudden urge to applaud Light's performance. Even half awake, he was a flawless liar. "We can talk in the morning," Light finished firmly, if tiredly, clearly having said his moral lecture for the day, but as he was about to turn over again a sly light snuck into his eyes, so sly that L guessed there weren't many others who would have seen it.

Light sat slowly up, feet dropping to the floor, his face now level with L's chest but his eyes slipping upwards to L's. "Unless you want to test that theory," he pointed out with the barest mocking tilt to his head, a tempting twist to his lips and a subtle, hard glint in his eyes. "You're so stubborn about testing your pet hypotheses, as I well know – and after all, if a notebook can apparently kill, why not a kiss?"

His mouth pulled into a cruel smile then, and the hard edge to his gaze became more pronounced as he flicked his eyes up and down the detective. He locked his eyes with L once again, all traces of dark teasing gone.

"Get out of here," he said seriously, softly, "and let me sleep. I'm fucking mourning. I've been patient with you up until now because I want to prove my innocence just as much as you want to fabricate my guilt, but even you shouldn't be able to justify taunting a man just hours after the traumatizing death of his girlfriend, which happened as he_ held her in his arms_; you shouldn't be able to do anything when you don't even have a shred of solid evidence against him – against _me_. So fuck off, L, and I'll talk to you in the morning." And with one last raking glare, he flipped himself over and presented L with his stubborn, slender back one more time.

For a moment, all L could do was blink and nip at his thumb in mild surprise.

He had known, of course, due to his prolonged experience with having Light semi-permanently fixed to the end of his wrist via a sturdy chain, that the other boy tended to be more easily irritated and more unpredictable with his reactions when he was tired, but unless L was very much mistaken Light had just proposed L kiss him, which was a rather unprecedented turn of events.

Oh, Light hadn't meant it, of course. L and Light both knew that. It had just been his bitterness – bitterness both real and manufactured – seeping out in caustic sarcasm, yet whether he meant it or not it nonetheless implied a ninety-three percent chance that Light was both comfortable with and well aware of his own homosexual leanings, which leanings L had previously observed and theorized him to be blind to. Not that it pertained significantly to the Kira case, but it was an interesting side note at any rate. It certainly cast some intriguing doubt on Light's former relationship with the late female model – though it hadn't really needed it anyway, as it had been obvious at least to L that Misa's affections hadn't sincerely been returned.

It made L curious, now, as he watched Light's ribs begin to rise and fall in a forcibly slowed pace which was gradually becoming honest as sleep grabbed at him once more, exactly how Light would react were L to take him seriously on his proposition that clearly wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Not to test the hypothesis of Light possessing a poisonous kiss, as Light had suggested, as that was clearly illogical nonsense, but simply to test his reaction to L taking up the offer of a kiss.

L wasn't interested in a kiss for the sake of the act – he had never had much time nor interest in such things – but it would nevertheless be interesting to see Light's reaction to L taking such action. For the purposes of observation.

Satisfied with his reasoning, L wasted no time in clambering up onto his suspect's makeshift bed and crouching next to his body, one hand rolling Light over so he was as far on his back as his cuffed hands would allow. Light's eyes were flickering open in sleepy surprise, barely having time to sweep up to L's face before L carefully leaned down and touched their lips gently together in his first kiss.

For a breathless moment neither moved, and L took silent note that neither of them had closed their eyes, as he believed was generally custom for such pastimes. He could see why this was so; Light really was too close to observe properly, and trying to do so only served to give him a headache.

So, aware his time was brief, L let his hands take Light's face within a soft hold to keep it in place, and he turned his attention instead, with his usual scientific curiosity, to quickly cataloguing the sensations he was experiencing before Light decided to draw away.

Kisses…were warm. Just a subtle warmth, but there nonetheless in the mouth pressed against his.

Kisses were also soft, but with a tiny hint of something that tasted like electricity tingling along his lips and also, surprisingly, at the very base of his spine. He wondered what that was, as there seemed to be no logical reason for a physical reaction such as that to occur merely from touching one's mouth to another's. He doubted it was merely a triggering of the nerve endings in his lips, as he had touched his lips many times before and never experienced such a sensation. It seemed, despite the way logic insisted otherwise, that it was a reaction to an actual kiss – how intriguing. L filed this away for later perusal.

Kisses were dry, as well, he discovered, though he supposed that changed depending on whether tongues became involved or not. He was just debating if this experiment could be improved by engaging his tongue and changing things from dry to wet when Light seemed to recover his senses and yanked his head away, sideways out of L's gentle grasp.

L pulled back as well without complaint, letting hands draw back next to his own body, and he returned his laser attention to Light, curious to observe his reaction.

It was difficult to tell in the dim lighting, but it appeared that Light's cheekbones were now dusted with the barest hints of color, though that seemed to be more an involuntary physical reaction to the contact rather than a betrayal of an embarrassment L was sure Light did not feel. Light's eyes were cool and calculating as they narrowed up at L, further dispelling the embarrassment theory, watching him as carefully as L watched in return. His breath was slow and audible between them, his hands clenched where they were trapped behind his back in a way that seemed to subtly suggest his resentment at his bound state.

L wondered what Light would have done had his hands been free. Punched him, maybe? Likely, though L found this a trifle unfair considering Light had extended the invitation in the first place.

As it was, Light simply stared up at him for a beat, then licked his lips – probably unconsciously – and spoke.

"That was spectacularly inappropriate, L."

L nodded, acknowledging the claim even as his unashamed gaze reminded Light that, as L, he was above such concerns.

"It was an experiment," he explained. "And you did offer. You can hardly maintain the notion that I'm abusing my position."

"Except that I am currently bound, freshly grieving the loss of my girlfriend, and was actually speaking in obvious sarcasm when I 'offered'. If it weren't for the fact that you're L, you'd currently be facing charges of police misconduct."

L frowned. "Yet, like you say – I am L, not the police. And do you not think you are exaggerating, Light-kun? It was merely a short kiss, between friends. Hardly the harassment you are implying. And at the very least, we have now determined there is no physical poison which taints your lips."

"If you had really believed that there was, L, you hardly would have tested it yourself."

L hummed. "Perhaps."

Light's eyes were suspicious as they watched him, gleaming a little in the semi-darkness, but he didn't scoot away from L or show any signs of discomfort with L's continued proximity.

"What was your experiment, then?"

"Tell me, Light-kun," L replied instead. "Was Misa aware of your sexual preferences?"

If L had hoped to catch Light off-guard, he would have been disappointed.

"That I'm bisexual, you mean?" he questioned, not attempting to deny anything, and there was a sharp, knowing glint to his eyes. "Yes. We'd discussed it. It wasn't a problem for her, if that's what you're asking."

L bit his bottom lip thoughtfully. Bisexual, then. It was possible, he supposed, if unlikely; L's instincts had always classified Light as more interested in his own gender than not. But it was possible.

L still had the feeling Light was lying.

But it was of little matter; Light's sexual orientation would have very little bearing in proving his guilt as an international mass murderer, particularly now that Misa was dead, and L had mostly ran his experiment out of personal curiosity.

"Kissing a suspect without permission in order to satisfy a theory is hardly ethical, L."

L dropped his eyes to Light once more, and found him gazing sternly up at him. It was interesting how Light seemed to think he could get away with playing the moral high-ground card with him, when they both knew full well L was perhaps the only person alive who wasn't fooled by his ethical pretense. In fact, the hidden, taunting gleam to Light's otherwise uncompromising mien acknowledged this, even if no one else but L would have cottoned on to it. L addressed this honest gleam rather than the moral mask Light wore.

"I have hardly claimed to be ethical in what I do, Light-kun. Merely efficient. There are times when ethics must be sacrificed in favor of justice – as I am sure you are aware."

Light's eyes spoke a thousand words his mouth wouldn't say, words of Kira and comparisons and _can't you see, that's exactly what I'm doing_, but Light wasn't stupid or careless enough to start spouting out pro-Kira propaganda, and L would have been disappointed if he had, however much he would have enjoyed poking holes in Light's arguments.

But Light remained silent, so L spoke instead.

"I'm sure you realize the position you're in, Light-kun," he said, and he hadn't meant for it to come out like a threat but it had anyway, soft and mild like the best kinds of threats were. He had simply wanted to call Light's attention to the fact that it was well within L's authority to use methods of extreme dubious-ethicality in his case against Kira, but suddenly it had felt vital to make sure Light completely understood this reality, inside-out and backwards, with all the implications entailed.

But Light seemed determined still to maintain his mask of naïve innocence, and he ignored the hovering, unspoken threat of torture even when his eyes spoke his true thoughts on the matter.

"Of course I do, L," he said softly, but there was a razor-sharp edge in his voice and in his eyes. "I'm being temporarily imprisoned because you're too stubborn to not jump at any chance to lock me away, even if it means you have to use personal tragedy as an excuse. You and I both know it won't last, though. However eager you are to place the blame of thousands of deaths on me, you know as well as I do that you don't actually have any solid proof – just assumptions and twisted theories and a murder weapon which can't ever be linked to me. _You can't prove it, L_. You can't prove it because you're trying to prove something that's a lie. All this – the cell, the handcuffs, all of it – are just technicalities. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can start working together to bring the real Kira to justice, the original Kira. You know this, L, you know this as much as I do."

There was a quiet fire in Light's eyes, an unquenchable determination that glinted in the darkness, and for a moment it threw L back to when, all those weeks ago, Light had been locked away in this very place, staring up at him through the lens of the camera and declaring his innocence with all the firm conviction of words seared into a mountainside. Back then, Light had been as magnetic and cunning as ever, almost unbelievably so, but with an unexpected soft edge that had appeared from nowhere, sharp but without danger, still innocent and naïve and unversed in some of the harsher realities of the world.

_You can't prove it, L_.

Now, Light's eyes held that same unshakeable conviction as they said those five words, but his eyes were harder, keener, the soft edge gone, his cunning lethal and ruthless like a deadly blade. The soft Light was gone, and it was that as much as anything that convinced L that it was Kira currently stretched out beneath him on the hard wood.

But even now, even now as Light's more-aware eyes acknowledged L's latent threat of torture and his lips twisted out his pretty half-truths and denied any knowledge of such possibilities, even now as Kira looked through his eyes with oceans of blood splattered on his hands, even now he still had an idealistic fire in him, a fire that might have been youthful but definitely wasn't innocent; he was like a young revolutionary, alight with passion and the ability to set others ablaze with his zeal, yet able to take a life, take thousands, without any pang of conscience.

L wondered if Light knew most young, idealist revolutionaries tended to end up gasping out their dying breaths as their bodies lay broken on their own battlements. Though, granted, most of them hadn't been as clever and capable as Light had already proven to be, and most of them weren't handed supernatural notebooks able to kill with only a name and a face. That did possibly change things.

Light, apparently satisfied he'd said his piece and finally quieted L, somehow managed to smirk up through the darkness without actually smirking, then twisted around one final time and gave every appearance of trying to return to sleep.

"Goodbye, L," he said.

L's eyes fell to that now-familiar stretch of skin above his waistline.

It was then, he'd realize later, that L understood the reality of the full extent of Light's stubbornness. He'd always known Light was as determined as he, but it was at that moment that he realized exactly what that meant. It meant, unconditionally, that Light would react just as stubbornly as L would in his situation, and L knew that were he in Light's shoes, nothing short of torture would have pried open his lips.

It was nothing Light had necessarily said or done, no particular gleam in his eye which L could isolate and point to as a cause, but L knew there was no chance of Light ever confessing while he still lived and breathed, save for under extreme physical and psychological compulsion – which L had already determined was only to be utilized as an unpleasant last resort.

And this thought may have been discouraging for L, if not for a quiet idea beginning to patiently take root within his mind.

As long as Light was alive, he'd never admit to his crimes under his own free will; L knew this.

But if he were dying – well, that was perhaps another matter altogether.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I'll be quick, here, just to show I can be. Just wanted to thank everyone for your interest in this fic, particularly all of you who reviewed last chapter. Sorry if I didn't manage to thank you personally – please know your feedback was thoroughly appreciated. And by 'was thoroughly appreciated' I mean 'made me dance around like an idiot'. Also, quick but heartfelt thanks go out to Algea, who is my wonderful sounding board and who always deserves infinitely more credit than I can give.<em>

_Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it._


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